The present invention generally relates to a three-dimensional virtual reality space display processing apparatus, a three-dimensional virtual reality space display processing method, and an information providing medium and, more particularly, to a three-dimensional virtual reality space display processing apparatus, a three-dimensional virtual reality space display processing method, and an information providing medium that allow a user to intuitively understand whether an object displayed in the three-dimensional virtual reality space is a chat-enabled object.
A cyberspace service named Habitat (trademark) is known in the so-called personal computer communications services such as NIFTY-Serve (trademark) of Japan and CompuServe (trademark) of US in which a plurality of users connect their personal computers via modems and public telephone network to the host computers installed at the centers of the services to access them in predetermined protocols. Development of Habitat started in 1985 by Lucas Film of the US, operated by Quantum Link, one of US commercial networks, for about three years. Then, Habitat started its service in NIFTY-Serve as Fujitsu Habitat (trademark) in February 1990. In Habitat, users can send their alter egos called avatars (the incarnation of a god figuring in the Hindu mythology) into a virtual city called Populopolis drawn by two-dimensional graphics to have a chat (namely, a realtime conversation based on text entered and displayed) with each other. For further details of Habitat, refer to the Japanese translation of "Cyberspace: First Steps," Michael Benedikt, ed., 1991, MIT Press Cambridge, Mass., ISBNO-262-02327-X, the translation being published Mar. 20, 1994, by NTT Publishing, ISBN4-87188-265-9C0010, pp. 282-307.
In order to implement the above-mentioned cyberspace system by use of the infrastructure of the Internet through which information can be transferred all over the world, standardization of a three-dimensional graphics description language called VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) is proceeding.
In WWW (World Wide Web) of the Internet, document data can be described in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and the resultant HTML file can be stored in a WWW server. This HTML file can be transferred on demand by a client terminal and can be displayed by use of the HTML browser of that client terminal.
Like this HTML file, three-dimensional graphics data can be described in VRML and the resultant VRML file can be stored in a WWW server. This VRML file can be transferred on demand by a client terminal and can be displayed by use of the VRML browser of that client terminal.
If, when a user who uses (mainly looks at) a three-dimensional virtual reality space through the above-mentioned VRML browser for example and is moving his or her avatar, meets an avatar of another user, the user can chat with another user.
For example, a chat service called Worlds Chat (trademark) developed by Worlds Inc. of US and made commercially available from April 1995 is used to make chat. This Worlds Chat supports chat in a three-dimensional virtual reality space based on the company's own standard, allowing a user to freely move in a virtual space of a fictitious space station to chat realtime in the form of text with another user in the space station.
However, if an object resembling a virtual creature or a robot autonomously moving in such a virtual reality space is arranged in it in addition to an avatar having the shape of a human being, the user cannot tell whether such a virtual creature or robot object is chat-enabled or not, thereby causing a confusion in navigating the virtual reality space.
Namely, if an object that the user meets in a three-dimensional virtual reality space is an avatar of another user, the user can intuitively recognize that the avatar is chat-enabled. However, if an object that the user meets simply disguises a human being, the user cannot determine whether that object is chat-enabled or not and may repeat a operation for starting a chat with such an object for nothing.